Wild Wednesday

"Darrin's not like that."

"Oh, he's not? That's why I caught him in your pants? You said it, you're going off to school in the fall. You're whole life is ahead of you. I don't want to see you throw it all away for a horny boy."

"I'm smarter than you think, Mom. If Iwas going to get up to anything I know all about protection."

Talking to her teenaged daughter about sex made Tess very uncomfortable and she was relieved when the waitress, an older Chinese woman who barely spoke English, interrupted to take their order. The break gave both women a chance to calm down and ratchet down the drama.

"I'm not asking if you're having sex, but I'm glad to know that if you are you know about protection."

"Mom, I'm not dumb. I don't want anything to happen."

"I know you're not dumb, but you don't understand how scary it is to be parent. You think about everything that could go wrong and you don't even want your kids to take any chances."

"I know, Mom, but you can't keep me as a little girl. You have to trust that I can make the right decisions."

"I know, honey."

It seemed like they'd made some progress and they were both civil while they ate. However, as they ate it became evident that they didn't quite understand things the same way.

"I've decided that if you behave and you check in while you're out, I'll lift some of your restrictions and you can go to the prom next week."

"Great! Thanks, Mom. I can't wait to tell Darrin."

"Wait a minute, young lady. I didn't say anything about going with Darrin. You're going to have to find another date to the prom if you want to go."

"I can't take someone else to the prom! I love Darrin, Mom!"

"You just think that now, Cady. In a few years everything is going to seem completely different."

"Shut up! I thought you were going to start trusting me."

"I am, but I don't trust him and I know sometimes when a boy gets your hormones all fired up you can end up doing something you regret. Stop debating me, Cady, this is not open to discussion. If you want me to ease up on your grounding you've got to stay away from Darrin."

"If Dad was here he would trust me."

The mere mention of her ex-husband made Tess see red. "First of all, your Dad would probably string that boy up, and second of all, your father is too busy fucking girls barely older than you to worry about his family. He's the perfect example of what a man can be!"

"Bitch! Maybe if you kept Dad happy we wouldn't have had to leave!"

Tess managed to check the impulse to smack Cady, but only just barely. She couldn't believe her daughter was so full of venom. "Cady, I am your mother and no matter how you may feel, you will not speak to me that way."

At that moment the elderly woman chose an opportune time come and collect their dishes. As she picked up their plates, the woman said, in heavily accented English, "It is not right for a girl to speak to her mother so."

Cady snorted, miffed that the old woman had an opinion one way or the other. "She doesn't understand. She forgets what it's like to be young."

"Maybe true." The woman said.

Now Tess was the annoyed one. Why didn't she just collect their dishes and go? She would have been mad that the woman was eavesdropping, but she knew they were probably loud enough for anyone around to hear. Was the woman actually siding with Cady, though? "Do you have children?"

"Yes, many. Sometimes generations lose perspective, need sight through each other's eyes."

Both mother and daughter thought that was silly. "Mom couldn't make it a day in my life. After a week everyone would probably hate her." Cady said.

"Well, maybe if you understood how hard it is to be a single mother and a professional woman you'd appreciate how I feel about things."

"See, no understanding. Week sound good to walk in other's shoes," the woman said, departing with their dishes.

"Let me get some shirts two sizes too small and I am sure I will be as popular as you are." Tess remarked.

"And I'll just run around bossing everyone around and no one will notice you ever left. And people don't just like me because I'm pretty. Should I make myself ugly just to make a point? And I've seen some old disco pictures of you, Mom. It's not like you were dressing like a nun."

Touché, Tess thought. But just because she did something didn't mean she wanted her daughter doing it.

The woman returned with the check and two fortune cookies. "I wish you to gain much wisdom through each other," she said leaving again.

Tess opened her cookie at the table, while Cady stuffed hers into her purse for later. Tess's read:To embrace another's journey is to gain peace and contentment. She didn't even give the fortune a second thought and dropped the crumpled slip of paper into her purse.

The women barely spoke to each other on the drive home and when they got there Cady went straight to her room and slammed her bedroom door. After IMing to her friends about her mother's latest indignities, Cady realized it was late and prepared for bed. Before turning the lights out, Cady dug her cell phone out of her purse to charge it and her fortune cookie came tumbling out. She didn't like fortune cookies, but she thought maybe the message would give her some interesting dreams, so she cracked the sweet open, throwing it away and keeping the fortune.

To embrace another's journey is to gain peace and contentment.

What the hell does that mean? Cady thought. Now she remembered why she hated fortune cookies. She turned out the light and rolled over.

Deep in sleep, Tess's pleasant dream about her fiancé suddenly turned into a horrible nightmare that would be forgotten by morning.

~~~~~

Cady's alarm blared loudly from the nightstand and she blindly groped to smack its snooze button, but she didn't find it where she expected it. Turning over, she located it on the other bedside table and wondered why it was going off forty-five minutes early. And why was it on the wrong side and why wasn't it set to play music? But Cady was not a morning person and as soon as she turned the alarm off all those thoughts evaporated and she fell right back to sleep.

Forty-five minutes later Tess was awakened by the inane chatter of some perky DJ describing a Nelly concert.What the hell is going on, Tess thought. As soon as her eyes opened she realized she wasn't in the right placeand that she was up forty-five minutes late. Why was she in Cady's room? Tess wondered if her angry daughter had played a practical joke on her, but Tess didn't think she was a light enough sleeper to be moved without waking up. She sprang out of bed, surprisingly not affected by the minor aches and pains, which had began cropping up when she entered her forties. She was too disoriented to notice she was wearing hot pink satin pajama pants and a matching cami top instead of the long cotton nightshirt she'd gone to bed in.

Tess marched right down to her own bedroom and slammed the door open, causing the lump under the covers to roll over and moan, "Alright, I'm getting up." In the seconds it took for Tess's brain to register that it wasnot Cady's voice coming from the bed, the person occupying it pushed the covers back and Tess saw herself wearily sit up. A wave of vertigo swept over Tess and she nearly collapsed to the floor. Her mouth opened, but no words would come. What her eyes were telling her was impossible!What the hell was going on?

Cady saw herself standing across the room,her mother's room, and uttered a bewildered, "Huh?"

The two women stared at each other uncomprehendingly for what seemed like an eternity, both rooted to the spot by the impossibility of what their eyes told them. Slowly Cady tore her eyes away from the her standing across the room to look into the full length mirrors covering the sliding doors of the bedroom closets. The bank of closets occupied nearly the entire wall, creating one huge mirror. Cady crawled to the end of the bed, staring at herself, and then over the foot rail to stand. What she thought she saw just couldn't be. She wasn't looking at a cute, curvy young woman in her little pajamas, but a middle aged woman in a long cotton nightshirt. She was looking at her mother.

"What the hell is going on?" Cady demanded, wheeling on her mother. Tess was still in the middle of the room, staring at herself mutely. Cady took her mom, herself, actually, by the shoulders and shook her.

"I don't know. I just woke up like this. I was in your bed, wearing your clothes and then I saw that Iwas you!"

"This is impossible. It's got to be a nightmare!"

"But who's?"

"I don't know, but one of us had better wake up. This is freaking me out." Cady reached out and pinched herself on the arm.

"Ouch!" Tess cried.

"That didn't work. Pinch me!"

Tess thought it was silly, but did as her daughter asked, though she couldn't bring herself to pinch herself quite as hard as Cady did. She watched herself wince.

"If you're dreaming and you know you're dreaming, how do you get out of it?" Tess wondered.

"I don't know. Maybe it's not a normal dream. Maybe someone slipped us something. It could be an acid trip. What are they like, Mom?"

"What makes you think I ever did acid?" Tess asked.

"You know, everyone was doing it back in the day."

Without confirming or denying she'd ever done the drug, Tess said, "I don't think this is the right kind of weird for LSD."

"Mom, you never got me up for school," Shep said, wandering into the room. Both women froze. Cady, in her mother's body, just stared at her little brother.

"She forgot to wake us both up. You'd better start getting ready." Tess said.

"You're not the boss of me," Shep told Tess, who he thought was his sister.

Tess was staring at Cady, hoping she would get the silent message. Finally Cady caught on and affecting her best maternal tone said, "You should always listen to your sister. She's very smart. So start getting ready."

"Listen to Cady. That'll be the day," Shep laughed as he left the room. Tess rushed to the door and closed it.

"I don't think this is a dream, Cady. Shep seemed perfectly normal. He looked at me just like I was you."

"He could just be part of the dream," Cady pleaded. She had the sinking feeling that her mother was right. "We need to get to a hospital right away so they can fix this."

"What can a hospital do about this?"

"We can't stay like..." Cady turned to the mirror again, beholding her mother's image. "Like this."

"But if we go to a hospital and tell them that we're trapped in each other's bodies they're just going to lock us both up. It's what I would do if a patient insisted she was trapped in another body."

"Mom, you have to fix this! I can't go to my prom looking like you!"

"You're not going to the prom in my body. Don't worry, honey, we'll figure this out, but for now we can't panic. We need to know what happened so we can fix it. In the meantime we have to stay in the house and avoid everyone. I'll cancel my appointments today and you can just stay home sick from school."

"No, I can't. There's a prom committee meeting and I have to be there."

"I'm sure the prom committee isn't going to grind to a halt if you miss one meeting."

"You don't understand. The DJ backed out at the last minute and we've got to listen to tapes today and find a replacement. If I'm not there that skank Charity is going to have her way and she has got theworst taste. I have to be there to make sure we get a great DJ."

"Cady, I'm not following you. I think our situation is a little more important than who is going to be the DJ at your prom."

"You might think that, but you'd be wrong. I am going to be me again by Friday night and I am going to be at my prom and I am not going to endure a sucky DJ all night. Ihave to be at that meeting."

"How are you going to accomplish that? You can't go to your meeting as me."

Her mom had a point and Cady gave it some thought. With resignation she said, "I guess you're going to have to go in my place. Charity wants her boyfriend's cousin to be the DJ, but I hear he's got a totally crappy CD collection, so make sure you don't let her get him through. And if you don't know who's good, just follow Darby's lead. I trust her taste."

Tess stared at her daughter like she'd lost her mind. "I am not going to your prom meeting. No one is going to believe I'm you."

"If you just sit there and keep your mouth shut everything should be fine, Mom. C'mon, please. Just do this one thing for me. If it wasn't an emergency I wouldn't be asking you to do this."

"I don't know, Cady. This seems pretty crazy. I really think we should stay here until we figure this thing out." Tess thought her daughter's definition of an emergency was rather strange, but then she did not think like an eighteen-year-old girl. She knew there was no way Cady would want her out among her friends if it wasn't really important to her. She thought that maybe if she did this for her then Cady would finally cut her some slack.

"Please, Mom." Cady pleaded, clasping her hands together. The body was that of a forty-three-year-old woman, but the gestures and facial expressions were those of a desperate teenaged girl. Tess thought she was looking at a funhouse mirror version of herself and wondered if maybe Cady was right, maybe they were under the influence of some drug.

"Alright, honey. I'll go to your meeting and I'll sit there and try to be as quiet as I can."

"Thanks, Mom. That's awesome. You'd better hurry up and get ready or you're going to get me in trouble."

"What do you mean? I thought you said the meeting was this afternoon, after school?"

"Yeah, but you can't say you're sick and miss school and then go waltzing in for a meeting. You'll get me in big trouble then. You've go to go to school. Don't worry; just don't talk to anyone. Tell everyone you've got laryngitis and that you can't talk."

"Cady! You're insane!" Tess protested, even as Cady pushed her toward the bathroom.

"Hurry up and get a shower. There's not much time. Thanks again!"

Tess got into the shower and began washing her unfamiliar body. She had to admit, it was exciting to be in a young, firm body again, although even at eighteen she hadn't been built like Cady. She had no idea where her daughter inherited her large 34D's from, but it wasn't her. Where Tess had a more lean, athletic body, Cady was very womanly, even at eighteen, curvy in all the right places. Tess cupped Cady's heavy breasts and marveled at the miracle of youth. There was just no way breasts that big should be so firm. She also noticed ruefully that Cady had her pussy shaved into a neat, narrow landing strip. Grooming down there was something Tess had barely thought about when that age. Again she thought that Cady must be sleeping with Darrin if she was worried about how she looked down there. Cady got her coloring from her father and her shoulders and chest were dusted with cute little freckles that faded as they fell lower.

Cursing as she washed Cady's thick, red locks, Tess was reminded of why she kept her hair short. Cady's hair fell to the middle of her back and washing all that hair seemed to take forever. No wonder her daughter was always running late in the morning. She stepped out of the shower and after drying off emerged with a towel wrapped around her. Cady was waiting, still in her bedclothes, and quickly ushered her mother back to her room to finish getting ready for school.

"You'd better go and make sure your brother's getting ready." Tess said.

"Why do I have to do that?"

"Because since I am being you right now, you have to be the Mom. Now go to it."

Tess searched through her daughter's clothes for something to wear, but everything seemed way too tight, too short and too colorful.Didn't Cady own anything that really fit? Tess didn't think she would be comfortable walking around in anything she found, even if she could pull it off with Cady's body. She dug around until she found a pair of jeans that were too low, but still pretty tight, and a t-shirt. She put on the plainest bra she could find so that pattern didn't show through the shirt and decided the outfit would have to do. The t-shirt was still too tight and she felt like every boy was going to be staring at her chest, but then that was the point of a tight shirt, wasn't it? Tess thought,I may be a Mom, but I still know how the game is played. When she went out with friends she wasn't above sexing herself up a bit, but she always made sure she was appropriate.

"You can't go dressed like that." Cady said, entering the room.

"What's wrong with what I have on?"

"For one thing, it's Wednesday. I always wear a skirt on Wednesday. And for another, Charity is going to be showing off her new breasts at the prom meeting, to get a little advance attention for the prom queen vote, so I have to make sure she doesn't steal the spotlight." Cady went to her closet and started looking for something else for her mother to wear to school.

"Wait a minute. New breasts? Charity Feinberg has new breasts?" Tess knew who Charity was, the girl had been in school with her daughter since kindergarten.

"Yeah, they're a graduation present from her parents, but they let her get them early so she'd have them for the prom. She came back from Spring Break looking like a porno star. I can't believe she went so big. I heard a rumor that she wants to go to Vegas and be a stripper after graduation, but her parents said she has to finish junior college or her parents are going to make her pay her own car insurance."

Tess's head was spinning. Breast implants in a high school girl? Talk of stripping? Was Cady eighteen or twenty-eight? What kind of world did teenaged girls live in nowadays? "I still don't see what's wrong with this t-shirt. It certainly, uh, shows you off."

"Yeah, I look good in that t-shirt, but I look awesome in this." Cady came back from her closet with a red top and a matching tiny skirt and held them up for her mother. "If you wear this no one will even notice Charity."

Despite her objections, Tess put the outfit on and couldn't believe Cady expected her to wear it. The skirt was a loose red and gray kilt that hung off her round ass and was so short she knew she'd be pulling it down all day.Was Cady really comfortable dressed like this? The top was very tight with three buttons at the neck which couldn't possibly close, leaving a lot of cleavage on view. It didn't come close to meeting the skirt and the little jewel hanging from Cady's tanned, flat belly was prominently displayed in what seemed like an endless stretch of exposed skin.

"I can't walk around all day like this. Do you know what every boy thinks when you're dressed like this, honey?" Tess decided she really had to start paying more attention to what her daughter wore.

"You're not going to be dressed like that.I am. Don't forget that you're me today and not you. Just try to be me." Cady gave her mother a sly smile that looked out of place on her middle aged face. "Yes, I know what boys think, Mom, but who cares. The attention can be nice, from the right boys, but I like the way being sexy makes me feel. And you need to change into a thong with that skirt."

"You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days," Tess sighed, although the thong was the one thing she agreed with Cady on. Tess hated panty lines too.

Tess sat down and tried to work on Cady's hair, but it was useless and her daughter had to take over.

"Don't you know how to fix your hair?" Cady asked.

"I know how to domy hair."

Cady played with her hair until she was satisfied and finally pronounced that her mother was ready for public consumption.